Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The creation story is necessarily the very first story told in the Bible, (Genesis 1 and 2,) and is a cornerstone of God’s revealed word because I believe that without this truth, (among others,) the entire Christian faith would collapse upon itself.

When God gave Moses the ten commandments, He bluntly told Moses, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:11 (Emphasis added) If the creation did not take place in six literal days, then not only would the Mosaic Covenant be irrational and fall apart, but God would be a liar, thus making any other claim in the Bible fallible. Furthermore, Jesus Himself declared that He was "Lord of the Sabbath", since He was the Son of God. Declaring Himself to be "Lord of the Sabbath" would have been irrational if the creation days are merely figurative and do not reflect accurately the amount of time God spent to create the universe.

To prove this truth, we can first look to the original Hebrew that Genesis 1 and 2 were written in. The word the King James uses is day. This is translated from the original Hebrew word, “yom.” Most Hebrew Language Scholars agree that every time the word yom is used in association with a number, or with the phrase "evening and morning", anywhere in the Old Testament, it always means an ordinary day. In Genesis chapter 1, for each of the six days of creation, the Hebrew word yom is used with a number and the phrase, "evening and morning".

There is no doubt that the writer is being emphatic that these are ordinary days. All Hebrew translation aside, some simple critical thinking reveals this truth to us as well. Knowing that God is omni-potent, (Revelation 19:6,) we can only assume that He could have taken as much or as little time as he wanted to create the earth and the heavens. That being said, the only logical reason God would use the word, “day,” is because he meant a literal day.

If the obvious Hebrew translation is not enough to drive the point home, God, in His providence, re-affirms this truth through His Word. In Exodus 20:11, (previously mentioned,) God explains again that “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is”

Moses also re-affirms his belief in six literal days when, in Exodus 31:17, he exclaims, “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”

Finally, 1st Corinthians 14:33 teaches us that “God is not the author of confusion.” He laid the bible out so that it would be easy for us to understand. He’s done so in this case in multiple ways. Not only did He clearly and bluntly state, “the evening and the morning were the first day, (yom,)…. The evening and the morning were the second day, “ etc. but He also went on to affirm this truth on multiple occasions and in multiple ways throughout the rest of the Bible. With all the biblical and logical evidence racked up for it, it seems once again, the simplest answer is the correct answer; God created the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them in a definitive and literal six days.